Definitely agree that sometimes it can be difficult to determine for ourselves who was better than who and it isn’t always nice and clear cut. I also agree that if and when their primes overlapped that we should be looking at their records against each other and against others to help inform us as to the relative strength of their play. One of the things that makes things tough is that it pretty much never happens that any two players in consideration had their primes line up exactly, and that during those concurrent primes they played all the same events (and the same number of events), so inevitably we have to rely largely and often solely on our judgment of the strength of their games from what we see, i.e. their skill and ability, to be able to make any kind of meaningful comparison about who was better than who.
You missed my point though. It would be ludicrous if you used a formula for choosing the GOAT that came up with one guy as GOAT, but where you yourself, in your own judgment, felt there was somebody else who was clearly, overall on net, a better, stronger, more skilled player. Obviously that would be a silly and faulty formula because it would be nonsensical for you to call one guy the GOAT if you feel somebody else was better (if you think you disagree with this premise then please explain why, but it seems abundantly obvious and I think most would agree if they gave it any real thought). They might have more accomplishments, or might have been more dominant in their era, or might be something else notable and worthy, but they clearly can’t be your GOAT if in your judgment there is somebody you are convinced was better.
This tells us that we have to rely on the strength of their games first and foremost to make the comparison for GOAT because any other method, whether it be how many tournaments they won or how much they dominated in their era or anything else can lead to exactly that nonsensical scenario where you feel that there is somebody else who played the game at a higher level than what some other formula comes up with for the GOAT.
Sometimes we just won’t be able to determine in our own minds who was better than who between players based on the strength of their play, and when that happens we of course have to then go to other criteria to help break the ties. There is plenty of room for debate on what those secondary criteria should be, and how much weight should be given to each. What I can't see any debate for is that the formula must come up with the player with the overall strongest game on net as GOAT, and the only thing that does that and therefore is the only one that makes any sense to use, is to make every effort to go by the strength of their play first and use other criteria as tie breakers as needed.
As to what happens if you simply can't tell who had the strongest game between say the top two players on your list (or any other two players for that matter), then the "how can you be the GOAT when there is somebody else who was better" rule hasn't been broken and none of the above applies in that case. It only fails to make any sense if you (you being anybody) are calling one person the GOAT and yet you believe somebody else was a better player, which means you are clearly using the wrong formula to determine GOAT instead of going by the strength of their games first and foremost like you should have.
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